The Face of Imperialism

Paradigm Publishers, 2011

"A searing indictment of the ruthless nature of imperial capitalism. Eloquent, deeply researched,
and beautifully argued, The Face of Imperialism is a truly wonderful book
that is essential for understanding the world we live in. Parenti's compassionate
voice is a much-needed corrective to the lies we are routinely fed."
—Gregory Elich, author of Strange Liberators: Militarism, Mayhem,
and the Pursuit of Profit

"Michael Parenti's study of imperialism provides a timely and incisive framework for
understanding the upheavals in North Africa and the Middle East. His analysis of the
links between autocrats and Washington is essential to comprehend the powerful
tide of hostility that informs the popular revolutions."
—James Petras, Bartle Professor Emeritus, Binghamton University

"Parenti's new book, The Face of Imperialism, is by far the best and boldest of all
his formidable work. It meticulously exposes the disastrous consequences of the
greed of multinational (mostly U.S.) corporations, and it documents how and why
they control our government, which claims to foster democracy but systematically
supports the dictatorships that cater to the profit motives of those corporations."
—John Gerassi, Queens College and the Graduate Center of CUNY and author of
Great Fear in Latin America and Talking with Sartre: Conversations and Debates

In the last half-century we have witnessed a dramatic expansion of American corporate power into every corner of the world, accompanied by an equally awesome growth in U.S. military power. These phenomena are often treated as independent developments. Here, Michael Parenti brings them together in a sharp critique aimed as much at errant liberals and certain Marxists as at the dominant political actors who have perpetrated the imperial lie.

Parenti adds shocking new evidence to the litany of injustices visited upon victims of U.S. imperialism: expropriation of their communal wealth and natural resources, complete privatization and deregulation of their economies, loss of local markets, deterioration of their living standards, a growing debt burden, and the bloodstained suppression of their democratic movements.

Just as compelling is Parenti's convincing case that the empire feeds off the republic. He shows how the richly financed corporate-military complex is matched at home by increasing poverty, the defunding of state and local governments, drastic cutbacks in human services, decaying infrastructure, and impending ecological disaster.

In this brilliant new book, Michael Parenti redefines empire and imperialism to connect the current crisis in America to its own bad behavior worldwide.

The Face of Imperialism makes clear that:

The purpose of the U.S. global empire is not the pursuit of power for power's sake but power to fashion the world into a corporate dominated global free-market. There is a politico-economic content behind the pursuit of imperial power.

U.S. foreign policy is neither inept nor misguided. Rather, it is largely successful in serving the interests of transnational corporate America. This process of global expropriation by the superrich —often involving the use of force and violence— is what is known as imperialism.

Third World poverty is not a product of "underdevelopment" but of overexploitation and maldevelopment.

The drastic development of climate change is not a thing of the next generation or end of the century. Catastrophic changes are happening now. For us to survive we must roll back the empire, develop sustainable energy, and rid ourselves of the profit pathology.

Table of Contents

Thinking about Empire
Orthodoxy as "Objectivity"
The Myth of Innocent Empires
Not Just "Power for Powerís Sake"
Instrumental "Truths" and the Dominant Paradigm

The Omnipresent Arsenal
An Expensive Parasite
Cui Bono?
Global Military
Dominance
After the Red Menace